Physiologic Volume and Atrophy of Brain and Spinal Cord Measured by Magnetic Resonance Imaging

Spinal cord (SC) involvement is prevalent in multiple sclerosis (MS) and contributes importantly to disease progression. To be able reliably evaluate spinal cord volume and its changes in MS patients we need to understand variability of these parameters in sex and age matched healthy controls (HC). To date, no generally available data about these parameters in HC are available. The objective of this study is to investigate age and sex matched HC by MRI to get the basic set of the data representing both cross sectional values and its longitudinal changes. The present study will also investigate different strategies how to normalize the absolute spinal cord and brain volume data, what is a relationship between spinal cord volume and brain volume and what is the best protocol to be used in a routine clinical practice.